Close Up: Ajamu X
in conversation with Matthew Arthur Williams
Watch the Facebook Livestream recording below:
Part of Black History Month 2020
For the sixth instalment of our Close Up artist talks we will be joined by Ajamu X, an internationally renowned artist and archive curator whose work has been shown in galleries, museums and alternative spaces around the world including New York, London, Berlin, Amsterdam and Senegal. Much of his work centres around his sexuality and explores the stories of those in the LGTBQ+ community, particularly black men. Recent work was included in ‘Get Up, Stand Up Now: Generation of Black Creative Pioneers’ exhibition which was held at Somerset House in London (2019) as well as Hayward Gallery’s ‘Kiss My Genders’ group exhibition (2019).
His exhibition ‘Future Histories: Celebrating The Scottish Diaspora’ kicked off Black History Month in 2012 and was developed during a residency at Street Level Photoworks and consists of portraits of African, Caribbean and people of Black Scottish descent living and working in Scotland. The project was dedicated to Maud Sulter. Prior to that his work ‘Familiar Strangers: Portraits by Ajamu X’ came out of a residency at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art and explored cultural and social politics around race, sexual orientation and exclusion in Scotland.
Matthew Arthur Williams is an English artist and DJ based in Glasgow. His work has been exhibited throughout the UK including Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, a solo exhibition at Minus (Glasgow) in 2017, and in ‘Ambit: Photographies from Scotland’ at Street Level Photoworks in 2019. He recently undertook a residency on the Isle of Eigg, has self-published a number of artist books and regularly DJs under the monker Junglehussi.
Banner Image: © James Cadden - Portrait of Ajamu
Left Image: © Ajamu - Beane Robertson, fashion designer
